


signed, sealed, delivered

by blamefincham



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: AU, Bodyswap, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-07-16 01:11:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7246168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blamefincham/pseuds/blamefincham
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick goes out for dinner with a few guys from the team, but it’s quiet, subdued. He goes home early, goes to sleep early, figures he’ll get up early and get a head start on his offseason.</p>
<p>Instead, he wakes up in Russia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	signed, sealed, delivered

**Author's Note:**

  * For [couldaughter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/couldaughter/gifts).



> My sincerest apologizes for the delay, I guess I suck at deadlines in exchanges :( HOWEVER I hope you enjoy this! 
> 
> The stat about roughly a dozen hugs is true. Here's hoping for more next season. Thank you to PB for reading this over for me before posting <3

Locker cleanout is never Nick’s favorite day of the year—never anyone’s, except after a championship season—but it’s particularly bad after a year like this one. Nick answers the pointed questions about the team’s spectacular nosedive, his thoughts on his ability to lead, and what hopes the Jackets have for the future, and he does it all with a smile and tension-relieving jokes at just the right time. He wears the C; it’s his job.

Besides, he doesn’t have it nearly as bad as Bob does—not after his meltdown at the beginning of the season, followed by injury after injury. Even as Nick is suffering through his own interviews, he can see Bob across the locker room, shoulders up, eyes down, clearly miserable. They make eye contact, once, but Bob just gives him a half-smile as if to say “ _I’m fine, stop worrying._ ”

The smile doesn’t reach his eyes. He’s not fine, that much is obvious. And no way is Nick gonna stop worrying that easily; does Bob _know_ him?

Despite his concerns, Nick doesn’t actually get a chance to check on Bob: the minute the media leave, Bob slips out too, apparently having cleaned out his stuff in record time. Nick frowns at his empty stall and thinks about the fact that they only got to do their ridiculous hug thing about a dozen times this year.

—

Nick goes out for dinner with a few guys from the team, but it’s quiet, subdued. He goes home early, goes to sleep early, figures he’ll get up early and get a head start on his offseason.

Instead, he wakes up in Russia.

Of course, he doesn’t realize that that’s where he is, at first. He knows he’s not in his own bed, and he _knows_ he didn’t go on a bender last night—and then he rolls over and spots a little doll on the nightstand, what appears to be the innermost piece of a matryoshka, and it’s glowing a soft gold.

Well.

Nick has never actually seen an active Token in real life, but he’s watched enough guilty pleasure romantic comedies to know what to look for—small, glowing gold, and kind of…unnatural? He reaches out to pick it up, and it’s way heavier than it should be, so—that’s that, then. Wherever he is, this is pretty much definitely a Sign.

And that’s about when he realizes that his hand isn’t _his_ hand, and he drops the matryoshka in surprise.

It doesn’t take him long to find a bathroom, but when he does, a quick glance in the mirror confirms his suspicions: it’s Bob staring back at him, moving when Nick does. So either this mirror is like that mirror from Harry Potter, or, more likely, his Sign involves swapping bodies with his goaltender.

His first instinct is to find Bob’s phone and call—well, himself, in a manner of speaking. But once he does, he realizes that 1) all the text on it is in Russian, although he would probably be able to fumble through to the phone app and dial a number, except that 2) he doesn’t know Bob’s passcode. Bob doesn’t appear to have a landline, either, so he’s pretty much stuck until Bob wakes up in Columbus and calls him.

Which could take a while, since it’s probably the middle of the night over there.

—

Nick figures he probably has a couple of hours before he can expect to hear from Bob, so in an effort to distract himself from freaking out about this, he gets dressed and goes out to explore Moscow a little. And by “explore”, he means “get hopelessly lost in, because he’s bereft of Google Maps”. It’s a small miracle that he makes it back to Bob’s apartment without help.

Not long after he does, Bob’s phone rings. Fortunately, even though the words are in Russian, green swipe bars are pretty language-neutral.

“Fligs?” says his own voice over the phone, which is…maybe the strangest part of this so far. He knew, logically, that if he was in Bob’s body, Bob was in his, but it’s one thing to know that and another entirely to be confronted with it.

“Yeah, it’s me,” he says back, speaking aloud for the first time today. He can hear the accent. It’s _weird_.

“I guess Columbus is black hole; I fly away yesterday and today, I wake up back here,” says Bob wryly.

“Maybe it is, and we’re in some kind of alternate dimension,” Nick jokes back. “I mean, stranger things, right?”

There’s a pause before Bob replies, “Maybe, but I don’t think glowy gold necklace here is yours, not unless you secret witch, so…probably Sign, I think.”

Nick sighs. “Yeah, I’ve got a Token too,” he admits.

“So Sign for us both? Okay. I will come to Russia for the second time this week, then,” says Bob.

“Wait, why are you coming here instead of me going there?” Nick asks, frowning. 

Bob laughs. It’s odd how it’s Nick’s laugh, because it’s his body, but it still sounds like Bob, somehow. “Because I don’t think you even find the airport without Google Maps. At least I know Columbus. Now, where you keep your passport?” 

—

The annoying thing about the Sign’s timing is that it’s going to be another 24 hours before Bob can make it from Columbus to Moscow. That’s a long time, long enough that a couple hours after he gets off the phone with Bob, Nick exhausts his ability to compartmentalize and decides to let himself freak out about this, just a little.

The thing about Signs is, is that they’re pretty rare. Most people who get them only ever get one, and there are plenty of people who don’t get one at all. It’s like a little nudge from the universe to point you in the right direction. They’re not always body swaps, though that’s not uncommon—a friend’s cousin was dropped in Siberia with a gear bag to teach her how to fend for herself, and of course everybody remembers the time a few years ago when a particularly obnoxious politician lost the ability to tell lies. As for the Tokens, they’re how you know that what’s going on is a Sign: no room for denial. 

The hard part is figuring out what the Sign is trying to show him—them—so that he can they can switch bodies back and go on with their lives. Nick _wants_ to say that he’s got no idea what it could be, but…honestly, he has one, it’s just not one he likes.

—

Bob texts him from the airport the next evening—he still can’t unlock the phone, but the notification pops up on the screen: _touchdown, see you soon)))_. It makes Nick nervous, which is like—stupid. This is _Bob_ ; he sees him every day; they’ve been teammates for years.

So of course the way he deals with his nerves is by being a huge goofball. When he opens the apartment door and sees himself, it’s weird—really weird—and the only thing he can think of to do is throw his arms wide and shout, “Bobrovsky!” 

Bob laughs and hugs him, of course, just like he always does. Their arm placement is a little off, what with no skates, no padding, and the whole swapped bodies thing, but they make it work. 

“How was your flight?” Nick asks as they break apart.

Bob smirks at him. “You mean other than the deja vu? Fine.” 

That thread of small talk dies there, and the heavy weight of awkwardness falls over them. They sort of stare at each other for a second in the foyer, before Bob finally shakes his head and shoulders past Nick into the kitchen. Nick follows him, for want of anything better to do.

In the kitchen, Bob appears to be making them both sandwiches, as calmly as if this was a perfectly ordinary day. Nick isn’t really sure how he’s managing that; Nick is full on freaking out by now, because that is the normal, rational response to a Sign like this. 

As if he can read Nick’s mind, Bob chooses this moment to speak up. “It’s the offseason, you know? We’ll figure this out, but no hurry. Also I am starving, Fligs.” 

_No hurry._ Nick snorts, but Bob isn’t done. “Also, also, you have a nice body to get stuck in. A little bit shorter, you know, don’t have to duck going through doorways…” 

“Ohhh, you’re gonna regret that one, Bobrovsky.”

—

After they’ve eaten, they kick back on Bob’s couch and start brainstorming about the Sign. Or at least that’s what they say they’re going to do; they mostly stare at each other blankly, until Nick decides to start cracking jokes.

“Maybe it means we’re supposed to leave Columbus and sign in the KHL. I mean, it did get us both here, right?” 

Bob frowns at him for a second, like he’s trying to figure something out, and then his face breaks into a grin. “Maybe it means we’re supposed to learn to read each other’s minds to help on the ice.”

“I think that would be more confusing than helpful, to be honest. You ever tried to watch two angles of a game at once?” Nick shoots back.

Bob tips his head, conceding the point, even though they were both joking in the first place. “Maybe it’s the universe trying to fix your sense of direction.”

Nick claps his hands over his heart and falls back like he’s been shot. He’s goofing around to make Bob laugh again, and it’s—normal, almost. As normal as it can be when they’re currently inhabiting each other’s bodies.

“I wonder if it’s supposed to teach you how to understand goalies’ pain and suffering instead of calling us weird,” Bob continues. It’s Nick who’s laughing now, at least until Bob’s expression sobers and he says, “But really, any ideas, Fligs?”

Nick shrugs, feeling sort of helpless. “I don’t—I don’t know, Bob. Not really?” He has one, but. He’s not going to mention that, noooo way. “Whatever this is, we’ll figure it out, and—” 

Bob rolls his eyes, but it’s gentle. “You don’t have to captain me, you know. I know you’re freaking out, Mister…” Bob pauses, like he’s trying to think of the word, which doesn’t happen very often these days. He wrings his hands for a second, inexplicably, and then comes up with, “Neurotic! Mister Neurotic.”

The hand wringing makes a lot more sense, suddenly. “Okay, first of all, how dare you,” says Nick, faux-affronted. “Second of all…touché.” Though it’s not something he likes to admit, Nick’s tendency to worry stuff into the ground is something several guys on the team are familiar with, and Bob more than most. 

—

Ultimately, they decide to sleep on it, since they’re not coming up with any good ideas and, like Bob said, they’re not really in a hurry. Nick had been sleeping in Bob’s bed, since that’s where he woke up initially, but now that Bob is back, he sets Nick up in the guest room.

Alone for the first time since Bob got in, Nick finally lets himself think about the one idea he does have about the Sign. It’s—crazy, is what it is, but…in terrible made-for-TV movies that Nick definitely does not watch, whenever somebody has a body swap Sign, it’s always to show that they’re meant to be together. Of course, so does just about every other Sign in that context, but the idea keeps popping up in the back of Nick’s head, and…

Bob’s a funny guy, a good teammate, and Nick likes making him laugh. He can’t deny that he’s attractive. It’s not that the concept has never occurred to Nick before, it’s just that he never thought that anything would come of it, since he had no idea how Bob felt. But a Sign like this is meant to show something to both of them, so…

The door opens, and Bob pokes his head in. “Just checking, you need anything else before we go to sleep?” 

_’No, goodnight Bob, see you in the morning,’_ is on the tip of Nick’s tongue, but at the last second, he changes his mind. “Actually, uh, yeah. Could you come in here?”

Bob does, looking a little confused. “So, you know, this is a pretty wild idea, but it just occurred to me, um…you know when this happens on TV, the answer is always like, that they kiss and then live happily ever after? That would be pretty crazy in this case, yeah, but—I don’t know, no stone unturned, right?”

Nick’s hand is fisted in the sheets, but under the comforter so Bob can’t see. There’s a long pause while Bob considers him, and then Bob says quietly, “That would be pretty crazy, yeah.” 

Neither of them move or say anything. Nick wants to quickly smooth things over and make it into a joke, but—he waits. After an excruciating amount of seconds, Bob adds, just as quietly, “But that is a pretty easy thing to check, so. Uh.”

Bob sits down on the bed. Nick swallows hard, his heart in his throat, and there’s another pause, but then Bob gives him a tiny smile, so he just—goes for it.

Nick’s Token is on the nightstand, but he can feel the necklace under his hand on Bob’s neck growing hot. It’s a pretty chaste kiss, really, but when Nick pulls away, there’s a _pop_ , and suddenly he’s the one perched on the end of the bed and Bob is under the covers.

“Oh,” he says stupidly. 

“Oh,” Bob echoes. Nick can’t quite tell if it’s meant to be teasing or not. 

Either way though, it doesn’t look like revulsion or horror, so the smile on Nick’s face spreads, slowly. “So…how bout that happily ever after, eh, Bobrovsky?”

Bob blinks at him, a little owlishly, but his expression resolves into a matching smile quickly enough. “As long as we take my last name when we get married, then okay. I mean, we both know it’s better than yours.”


End file.
